RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) -- A variety of configurations to use more than one disk to increase reliability, speed, and/or size of hard drives.

See also:

• RaidQuickHowto

See:

• AboutThesePages

Contents

Notes

Resources

See ResourceRecommendations. Feel free to add additional resources to these lists, but please follow the guidelines on ResourceRecommendations including ResourceRecommendations#Guidelines_for_Rating_Resources.

Recommended

• (rhk) Common threads: Software RAID in the new Linux 2.4 kernel, Part 1: Installation and a general introduction; Daniel Robbins; Feb 2001 -- "The new 2.4 kernel is out! So it's time to track down a spare PC, put Linux on it, and see what it can do. In his two-part series on the Linux 2.4 Software RAID, Daniel Robbins introduces the new technology that's used to increase disk performance and reliability by distributing data over multiple disks. This first installment covers Software RAID setup (kernel and tools installation) and shows you how to create linear and RAID-0 volumes." -- appears to be worth reading

It was worth reading -- some of the feedback I sent him recently (12 Mar 2003) -- also mentioned that booting from RAID might be very easy now:

Thanks for writing this, it's a real help -- I will offer some feedback though:

• I'm almost 100% certain that the probablity of failure of two disks is the product not the sum of their individual failure probabilities. (This comes up in both parts of your article.)

• You didn't mention (AFAICT) two other potential problems, specifically those mentioned in http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO-5.html (or near there) -- one the potential for corruption because RAID assumes a write is completed if it gets no error message (aside: is this any different than any other filesystem?), and the potential for data corruption due to a "temporary" multiple (disk) failure (discussed a little later, IIRC).

• (rhk) Creating Disk Arrays with the 2.4 Kernel; F. William Lynch; viewed 24 Jul 2002 -- looks like it's worth reading --
• (rhk) Using RAID in Linux The Mysteries of RAID; Alexander Prohorenko; C 2002, viewed 2 Aug 2002 -- looks like it should be a useful introduction to RAID for the non-sysadmin
• (rhk) Raid -- PCUNIX / A.P. Lawrence, viewed 17 Sept 2002.
• (rhk) Recovering a RAID disk back into a RAID device /dev/md* -- looks very useful (well, hopefully not, but) if one of the disks in your RAID fails, here's some concise advice on further testing and getting it back up to full operation (i.e., with redundancy) quite possibly with the "failed" disk.
• (rhk) IDE RAID round-up: A four-way, four-drive benchmarking bonanza; Geoff Gasior; December 4, 2002 -- looks like a good article (read the first section, explains many RAID variants (0, 1, 5, 10, 0+1)

_HOWTOs (search at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html)_

• Linux ATA RAID HOWTO; -- "This HOWTO document explains how to install Linux on an Intel Pentium compatible computer with an ATA RAID Controller (onboard chip or seperate card), single or multiple processors and atleast two hard disks."

• The Software-RAID HOWTO; Jakob Østergaard -- "This HOWTO describes how to use Software RAID under Linux. ... This is the RAID layer that is the standard in Linux-2.4, and it is the version that is also used by Linux-2.2 kernels shipped from some vendors."

Recommended for Specific Needs

• (rhk) [[][]] --

Recommended by Others

• (rhk) [[][]] --

No Recommendation

• (rhk) [[][]] --

Not Recommended

• (rhk) [[][]] --

Contributors

• () RandyKramer - 25 Jul 2002
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